Wednesday, August 20, 2008

LumiSport Quartz Diver

My watch today is a LumiSport quartz diver's watch. I've only ever seen a few watches branded LumiSport and I've heard they were once sold by Sears. As you might guess from its looks and the tritium vial night illumination, this was made by mb-microtec who also makes Luminox and Traser watches. Here's a very similar LumiSport that was for sale on the WUS forum (I paid much less for mine and it was brand new.) This watch is in some ways nicer than my Luminox 3005, namely, its stainless steel case, screw-down back and screw-down crown. It has the same Ronda Swiss quartz movement (which means I could also swap this dial for a MKII dial, which was my intention when I bought it,) same hands and illumination system, but the bezel is more low-profile on the LumiSport. I guess if you're actually using the bezel the chunkier one on the Luminox would be better, especially underwater or when wearing gloves. They both have a 200m water resistance rating, and I'm sure both are very durable, but the stainless case and back on the LumiSport just seems like it will last forever while the plastic case on the Luminox seems lighter and more fragile. Really, I like them both, and they're different enough that I don't feel the need to get rid of one. While I still my swap out the dial on this watch (I could even use my old yellow Luminox dial if I wanted to) the blue dial is kind of growing on me, so maybe I'll keep it like this for a while longer. (The photo below that seems at first to be all black is actually a photo of the illumination of the watch is near darkness. It was the best I could do at work with poor light control and my point-and-shoot camera. In complete darkness, when your eyes are adjusted it really does look very bright, like this. Image from here.)